Even more than most good baseball umpires, Andy Zajac carries himself like an amiable corporate CEO unless you try too hard to test him. At 6-feet-2, he is an imposing presence with 48 years of experience with a few long breaks to coach his kids and some 2,500 games behind the plate and on the bases.
It’s the perfect resume for his peers on the Northwest Connecticut Board of Baseball Umpires to elect him president “for the last four or five years.” It’s also the perfect resume for a long fascinating phone conversation last Friday morning as he drank coffee on the deck of his home in New Hartford. “I love baseball and I still enjoy a great play,” he says while running down an affair with the game that began at age 5, carried him through all-league honors as an infielder at Meriden’s Maloney High School, a Division II scholarship at American International College in Springfield and several more years in Connecticut’s Twilight League.
“Then, out of every 10 people who apply, you’re lucky if you end up with one.” Some of the reasons are obvious. “We all take crap,” he said, but so do CEOs, and to be one goes back to the basics of personality and philosophy. “You’ve gotta like the game,” he said, “but much of the rest comes in a personality that falls between two extremes: You can’t be a thin-skinned person who won’t take criticism. You’re going to be tested. “On the other side, we get some people who start with a chip on their shoulders and think they’re God. You don’t have to answer people back on everything. Sometimes, you just have to bite your tongue.” The rest is nuances that come with experience. “Don’t take any crap in the first inning. If you do, by the fourth inning, you’ve got chaos. “On the other hand, understand how serious it is to eject someone, especially a high school coach. These days, that usually means somebody sits out for two games and maybe even pays a fine.”
But there are other ways to deal with difficult game situations, just short of ejection. Tri-State Baseball sometimes presents the toughest challenges, especially in the highly emotional late stages of its annual tournament. “I remember one year when one team’s whole bench was chirping,” Zajac said. “One batter, in particular, was at the head of it. I told him ‘That’s the last comment I’m going to hear from you. If not, I’m going to go down the bench, starting with you.’” Control is vital — first of oneself, then of the game.
“Behind the plate, there are probably 15 pitches in every game I could call either way, but I usually give the pitcher the benefit of the doubt,” Zajac said. “The best pitchers cut the corners and if you take that away from them, you’re taking away their best pitch for the rest of the game. “I tell newcomers, ‘The most important pitch in baseball is strike one. If it’s borderline, call strike one and don’t change it.” Part of it is communication. “In the strike zone, fans can see north and south but not east and west. That’s why I always holler, ‘No, that’s inside’ or ‘No, that’s outside’ for balls in that zone. It lets the batter and the fans know what I’m seeing and I call them as I see them. “Sometimes, I make a mistake, but I don’t do makeup calls. “On the bases, if it’s a bang-bang play, yell it out. Don’t waffle. Be in control. Before that, anticipate the play but don’t anticipate the call.”
The Tri-State Baseball League playoffs begin this weekend, through the next two weekends. It’s likely to be the last good local summer baseball — and umpiring — you’ll see this summer.
If you go, you might just enjoy it more if you appreciate the art of good umpires as crucial to the romance of the game.
Who knows … you might even consider becoming one.
